Need a More efficient way to complete this job

[Craig]

We have a newsletter we do once a month, it's 2 11x17's printed 1/1, collated and folded to 5.5 x 8.5 for mailing. We have a Watkis collator/bookletmaker that we collate and fold to 8.5 x 11 then he hand feed them back through the bookletmaker to fold to 5.5 x 8.5. I have tried to run the folded sets thought a floor folder to get them to the 5.5 x 8.5 size, but it just turns out to be a headache with too much waste.

Is there something obvious that I am missing? (I hope)

 

[givbob]

Craig,

Talk to a local dealer, what you need is a knife folder on the end of your bookletmaking system. I know Baumfolder makes such a product, as does Standard/Horizon. I am not sure if the Standard/Horizon would mate up to your Watkiss.
good luck.

 

[Craig]

Thanks, I will call my dealer on Monday and look into it. I knew there was something obvious that was needed.

 

[bgardner]

We have a Horizon Booklet Maker with a 3rd Party Knife Folder at the end, to do the right angle folds after the booklet is made. I think its made by a company called Dietz??? It slows down the machine a bit, but it may still be your best option

 

[Craig]

Thanks, this will be one of the solutions I will be looking for at GraphExpo.

 

[postal]

2 way folding

2 way folding

Here's what we do:
At the end of our collator/stitcher/trimmer, we position a little scorer machine and as they come off the cst, we score them down the middle. They will run like a dream thru any folder then...even a little cv7 martin yale friction feed! We have large Stahl folders with right angles, but for my money and the time, you can have 1 person cst and score as the cst doesn't run nearly as fast as a scorer...then it's off to whatever folder you have and you will be amazed.
Greg

 

[Craig]

Thanks Greg!

 

[JaimeZ]

Craig,

So this is a 16 page 5.5x8.5 booklet? Does it saddle stitch? And how many are printed?

 

[Craig]

This particular job is an 8 page 8.5 x 11 newsletter folded to 5.5 x 8.5 for mailing, qty 4,000.

 

[JaimeZ]

Craig,

We print my local church's Sunday bulletin every Thursday; it's an 8 page 5.5x8.5 booklet and it is not saddle stitched. We print 800 on an 11x17.5 (half inch gutter centered) 100# matte book sheet black ink on our Ryobi 3302 two sides. Friday mornings we double fold it on our Baumfolder Ultrafold 714XE with a right-angle attachment. The first fold is 11x8.75 and the right-angle fold is 5.5x8.75. We then trim the quarter inch and it's collated and ready to ship. The bindery takes less than a half an hour. We did try using our Standard/Horizon Collator/Bookletmaker but found it took about 90 minutes.

If your job is 4000 two 11x17 sheets both sides I do not think it will work as well because of the hand collating of the two folded signatures. However one 11.5x17 sheet is no problem.

 

[Craig]

Something to keep in the back of the mind though, thanks!
How do you like your Baum 714XE, we are currently looking at replacing our old O&M Floor Folder, maybe a Baum 20 with 8 page, just not sure though? Any issues with the 714? We have a table top Martin Yale 915?? that we use for small stuff but it never folds and 11x17 the same twice.

 

[postal]

Jaimez - you are correct if you have 2 things in your favor. A right angle folder(and someone who can set it up if it's not setup for that configuration at the time 30 minutes if not) and a customer who doesn't mind not having stitches holding the sheet together. We would do it the same way here if those were met...if not then it's back to the hand work!

 

[JaimeZ]

Craig,

The Baum Ultafold 714XE is a great folder and easy to setup; it takes between 5 to 10 minutes to setup the right angle from a simple letter fold configuration. It's an air feed and the largest sheet we've folded is a 12x18. However, it is not one of your larger floor models with pile feed etc.

My local church prefers the bulletin unstitched, but for those jobs needing saddle stitching we use other options, such as, using our power stitcher, to hand feeding the 8.5x11 collated sheets into the Standard folder/stitcher for the coated sheets or using the Horizon collator in-line with the Standard for the uncoated sheets.

 

[Craig]

Thanks again JaimeZ!

 

[JaimeZ]

Your welcome Craig.

The attached PDF shows how we layout the pages and then print them. The rule in the center line helps us line up the printed sheets, which trims out after the two folds. We do not use crops for the job so we can run as close to a cut sheet (11x17.5) as possible in order to eliminate unnecessary trimming

 

[JaimeZ]

oops, forgot the PDF!

 

[davemims]

The way I always do it is print as a right angle 8pgr. head to head with 1/2" in between the heads. Finish cut the face & foot to 17 x 22 1/2 at flatbed, then fold in 1/2 to 17 x 11 1/4 in 1st unit,scoring the spine coming out, then fold in half to 8 1/2 x 11 1/4 in the right angle, and score down the middle and slit the extra 1/4" off the head coming out of the right angle. Now you have 2 (11 x 17) 4pgrs. nested already scored for the last fold to be made in the 16pg. unit.
I'm not sure what size presses you have, but you can also run as a double parallel,pre-trimmed to 11 x 35. Fold 1/2 & 1/2 again to 11 x 8 3/4 and score coming out of 1st unit, then fold in 1/2 in the right angle to 5 1/2 x 8 3/4 and slit off the excess 1/4" off the face coming out of 2nd unit. Hope this helps.

 

[JaimeZ]

Yes, a 29" or 40" press would be nice, but they would put us out of business should we buy it now. Our largest press size is a 20" GTO so we can only run 2up 8.5x11 or 4 up 5.5x8.5. Perhaps in the future we'll get a larger press or maybe a high end digital press, or.... Yes all the toys one can have--enough of the lusting and let's get back to reality, bummer and it's Christmas time, let's just be grateful for what we have and for still being in business--Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!